George Tecușan, Country Manager Renalfa România
The PV industry is shifting from isolated PV projects toward fully integrated hybrid parks that combine solar, wind and BESS into a single, dispatchable-like product, says George Tecușan, Country Manager Renalfa Romania. The company built the biggest PV power plant in Romania last year, with a capacity of 174MWp, Studina project, co-owned together with CWP Europe ”2026 will be a year dedicated to securing financing for our portfolio and streamlining the execution processes. In July 2025, we secured the first important financing tranche of EUR 315 mil, from a club of banks led by EBRD, that will support a 1.2-billion-euro investment in the region,” George Tecușan tells Energynomics.
What will be the main growth directions of the market in the coming period, both in Romania and at regional level, in your view?
The renewable energy market in Romania and across Central and South-Eastern Europe is entering a new phase of maturity. After an accelerated solar expansion cycle in 2023–2025, we are now transitioning from capacity growth to system integration.
Regionally, Renalfa Solarpro Group operates in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania and North Macedonia, where we see a common pattern: a shift from isolated PV projects toward fully integrated hybrid parks that combine solar, wind and BESS into a single, dispatchable‑like product. In this context, the Group’s strategy is not just to add capacity, but to “stack” value streams: energy sales, balancing services and ancillary services. That means our growth direction will be less about “how many MW” and more about “how many stacked revenue streams per MW” and how deeply we integrate into local power markets. At group level, we operate over 382 MW of PV, 89 MW of Wind, and 670 MWh of BESS, with more than 3 GW of projects under construction and development in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, and North Macedonia.
What did the company’s balance sheet look like for 2025 –results, investments, transactions, and projects – and what are the objectives, KPIs, and financing plans for 2026?
2025 was a landmark year for Renalfa Solarpro Group in Romania and the broader region. We manage to complete the construction of the biggest PV power plant in Romania, with a capacity of 174MWp, Studina project, co-owned together with CWP Europe. In February this year the project reached commercial operation and started to inject green power into the Romanian National Electricity System. We completed the acquisition of a 258 MWac photovoltaic project in Teleorman, via our joint‑venture platform Renalfa IPP, together with our partners RGREEN INVEST. This project is scheduled to reach commercial operation in 2027 and will integrate 1 GWh of BESS, making it one of the largest hybrid solar‑storage developments in the region. Through our trading arm, KerToki Power, we have acquired a standalone BESS project of 150 MW by 4h, at RTB stage, located in the South-Western part of Romania, that will be built in 2 phases, first phase targeting COD beginning of 2027.
2026 will be a year dedicated to securing financing for our portfolio and streamlining the execution processes. In July 2025, we secured the first important financing tranche of EUR 315 mil, from a club of banks led by EBRD, that will support a 1.2-billion-euro investment in the region. Considering the relatively large size of our projects, financing is a critical milestone to be achieved, and we are already in a very advanced stages with strong local and regional partners to complete the full bucket needed for our Romanian projects. Execution is performed by Solarpro Holding, our EPC arm, which can ensure a very fast construction process for the assets. Solarpro Holding is recognized as one of the European leaders in the provision of EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) and O&M (operations and maintenance) services. With a staff of over 1,100 specialists, Solarpro has installed more than 9 GW of photovoltaic capacity in over 30 countries. The company’s competencies also include the implementation of hybrid projects combining photovoltaic, wind, BESS and green hydrogen technologies.
How do you see the future of storage in 2026? What are the efforts (CAPEX) for the construction of a hybrid park and how long does it take to amortize?
In the energy world, storage is now a buzz word. Considering the latest public announcements, we should see a significant number of projects and MW of energy storage projects to in construction in 2026 and, some of them, already commissioned by the year end. This would be certainly a good thing for the national electricity system and for the consumers. However, the operational reality, especially the grid connection process and the energization procedures, might be sometimes more complex than expected, since integrating these systems into the TSO or DSOs grids is a relatively new topic for everybody in the market. Our group, through Renalfa IPP, managed to commission in June 2024 one of the first utility scale projects in this region of Europe, in Bulgaria, by connecting to the TSO grid a 33MWp PV plant and a 25MW/55MWh BESS. Since then, the project has been extended, reaching now 110MWh of BESS. Another successful story of our group, and not a very common achievement in this region of Europe, is the hybridization of a 73WM wind farm in Bulgaria with a 155MWh BESS system. We do continue to hybridize all our assets, either in development or already in operations, by installing energy storage systems.
In terms of investment effort, through the integrated structure with our EPC arm, Solarpro Holding, we manage to obtain competitive cost structures and fast execution for all our assets, which leads of course to very attractive payback times for our investments.
On the Romanian market, we will start the construction for at least 400MW/ 1,300 MWh this year, split in 2 projects, one PV hybrid asset and one standalone BESS, the latter being part of the portfolio of our trading arm, KerToki Power. Ker Toki Power, a company within the Renalfa Solarpro group, operates as an electricity supplier, offering digital and innovative services through the Toki platform. Founded in 2022, the company offers residential and commercial customers green energy options with guarantees of origin, as well as fixed or market-indexed tariffs. Its activity is carried out in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and North Macedonia. Ker Toki is currently expanding its operations in the Romanian market and, later this year, will launch a range of competitive route-to-market (RTM) service agreements for projects producing energy from renewable sources and battery energy storage systems (BESS), including dedicated tolling agreements for battery assets.
How do you see the evolution of CfD and PPA in 2025 and 2026, especially as a stabilizing factor but also as an influence on a price benchmark?
Romania’s introduction of Contracts for Difference (CfD) represents a structural milestone. In 2025, the two CfD auctions awarded a total of 4.2 GW of capacity and demonstrated very competitive solar prices, with bids reaching as low as around 35 euro/MWh. Now, all these projects must enter the execution phase and then start to produce electricity to have the full success of this support scheme. In 2026, we expect CfDs to continue as the main stabilizing instrument for large‑scale projects, especially for those investors which do not have internal optimization and route-to-market capabilities. In our case, we are more focused on optimizing the assets’ output through our trading arm, KerToki, taking advantage of the market opportunities, while securing long term contracts for significant parts of the assets production, either in the form of CfD or PPA, is not our main strategy.
What are the main problems facing RES investors in Romania? What about the electricity market? Why do we have high prices, despite the entry of new capacities into the market?
RES investors in Romania still face 2 central problems: grid‑integration constraints and regulatory uncertainty in certain niches. Most probably, the biggest impact in 2026 on the RES market will be the implementation of the new rules for access to the grid, based on auction mechanism for new grid capacities. I think it is still somehow unclear for most of the market players how this mechanism will be implemented, and what will be its impact on the long-term perspective of the renewable energy projects in Romania.
On the electricity‑market side, high prices are driven by a mix of factors: grid bottlenecks that do not allow efficient use of the energy where it is needed, gas price benchmarks and carbon pricing, and lack of sufficient storage capacity.
In this context, hybrid projects with BESS become even more valuable, because they can shift low‑priced generation into higher‑priced periods and help alleviate local congestion, thereby contributing to a more efficient price formation over time. Renalfa Solarpro Group sees itself as part of the solution: by building grid‑smart, hybrid assets that can deliver green energy seasonal baseload products, which are highly demanded by the market and customers.
How do you see the evolution of the energy market in Romania, but also in the markets where you are already present, in 2026 and in the short term?
In Romania, the short‑term evolution of the energy market will be defined by three drivers: the integration of several GW of new CfD‑backed RES projects, the increasing role of BESS and the changes in the grid access rules. We expect to see a more diversified and liquid wholesale market, with a growing share of long‑term structured contracts (CfD and PPA)
At the regional level, across Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland and North Macedonia, we observe a similar pattern: ambitious renewables targets, rising solar deployment and a clear push toward hybrid, storage‑integrated assets. However, each country has its own regulatory and grid‑integration pace, so our strategy is to use a common technological and operational platform (Renalfa Solarpro Group’s EPC, O&M and trading arm) while tailoring commercial and regulatory approaches to local conditions. Our integrated structure allows us to: Develop, Engineer, Own, Optimize, all within one coherent structure.
At Renalfa Solarpro Group, our strategy is clear: We are not just building megawatts. We are building resilient, financeable, dispatchable renewable platforms aligned with Romania’s long-term energy transition.
